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3 Stocks Pulling The Basic Materials Sector Downward

Editor's Note: Any reference to TheStreet Ratings and its underlying recommendation does not reflect the opinion of TheStreet, Inc. or any of its contributors including Jim Cramer or Stephanie Link.

All three major indices are trading up today with the
Dow Jones Industrial Average (
^DJI) trading up 87 points (0.5%) at 16,606 as of Thursday, May 8, 2014, 12:55 PM ET. The NYSE advances/declines ratio sits at 1,938 issues advancing vs. 1,065 declining with 159 unchanged.

TheStreet would like to highlight 3 stocks pushing the sector lower today:

3.
Vale (
VALE) is one of the companies pushing the Basic Materials sector lower today. As of noon trading, Vale is down $0.22 (-1.6%) to $13.33 on average volume. Thus far, 9.9 million shares of Vale exchanged hands as compared to its average daily volume of 21.1 million shares. The stock has ranged in price between $13.21-$13.61 after having opened the day at $13.60 as compared to the previous trading day's close of $13.55.

Vale S.A. is engaged in the research, production, and sale of iron ore and pellets, nickel, fertilizer, copper, coal, manganese, ferroalloys, cobalt, platinum group metals, and precious metals. Vale has a market cap of $69.0 billion and is part of the metals & mining industry. Shares are down 11.2% year-to-date as of the close of trading on Wednesday. Currently there are 6 analysts that rate Vale a buy, 2 analysts rate it a sell, and 6 rate it a hold.

TheStreet Ratings rates
Vale as a
hold. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its expanding profit margins and largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself, deteriorating net income and disappointing return on equity. Get the full
Vale Ratings Report now.